


Destruction

by moon_of_mercury



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Gen, No Time To Die Trailer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:20:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27505228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moon_of_mercury/pseuds/moon_of_mercury
Summary: Bond comes back.Q thinks he has destroyed enough.
Relationships: James Bond/Q
Comments: 10
Kudos: 94





	Destruction

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to themuller13 for all the help and encouragement! This is my first time posting here and this work is not betaed, mistakes are very likely and 100% mine. Inspired by NTTD trailers, any dialogue you recognize is borrowed from those.

Despite everything, James has felt a little bit nostalgic, almost giddy with excitement at the prospect since Moneypenny had agreed to accompany him to their informal meeting. He’d had no place to stay in London and no time to even get settled in a hotel, but it doesn’t matter. This is where he is meant be, and what he’s meant to do. He has felt high on adrenaline, brotherhood and _home_ from the moment the British Isles lovingly welcomed him back, wrapping him safely in that clinging, grey morning mist. They are on the brink of a massive global disaster and he’s as close to happiness as James Bond ever gets. Isn’t that a cheerful thought?

Now, however, the feeling is quickly fading. It’s not the same anymore. Everything has changed. The gravity of Eve’s expression as she follows him in, brushing past Q’s shoulder on the way into his living room speaks volumes. The Quartermaster does not even turn around to face them for a few long seconds, despite James’ friendly greeting. James hadn’t anticipated this; being clearly an unwelcome guest. It feels like a punch to the solar plexus.  
  
Q hadn’t _really_ thought him dead, had he? Unlikely; Q should know better than that. He _did_ always know better.  
  
James doesn’t look, but he sees. He’s surrounded by the private life he’d long ago often wondered about. It’s a fairly ordinary home, lived in for long enough to have accumulated unnecessary items and some personal effects, telling little truths about the inhabitant. Well-off, but subtle in choices of simple and domestic taste. He’s been trained to observe, after all. It’s all Q. There are no signs of another person sharing the space in any permanent manner. The thought is fleeting, but it settles inside of James’ chest like an aching memory.  
  
Two cats and a mortgage.  
  
Q follows them finally into the living room, motions towards the pair of sofas around a coffee table and offers tea. They don’t sit down, and Q doesn’t insist on serving them anything.  
  
“This is really rather unexpected, Bond. Care to enlighten me why you have suddenly decided to barge into my home late at night like it’s the most natural thing?”  
  
Q’s tone is quite neutral, not accusatory in the way the words themselves might sound. Still, James notes the lack of open-minded curiosity he had always come to associate with his quartermaster, whenever he was presented with a challenge or a puzzle. This older, colder Q comes off almost as jaded, and James doesn’t like it. There’s clearly an old, worn-edged pain behind the familiar green eyes. He knows part of it is probably his doing.  
  
“I need your help with something,” he simply says, leaning in, lowering his voice. Making it feel confidential. Just like the old times. Baiting Q, like he’s used to. There’s a shiver starting somewhere around that pressure point in his chest.  
  
Q actually rolls his eyes. Waits. James doesn’t elaborate, it almost feels like a staring contest. They used to have those down in the Q-Branch. He knows he’s always been a manipulative asshole.  
  
“Why don’t you go ask Mallory”, he finally huffs, sounding just a little bit irritated. Restless, as if he can’t wait to be rid of them.  
  
“We will,” James states firmly, searching for Q’s eyes but unable to catch his gaze for longer than a second. “We’ll go to M. But I really need you with me on this.” When he says this, it hits James just how true it is: he can’t go through this all without Q.  
  
“What for?”  
  
“It’s a long story. It involves Americans. And a villain with a bloody god complex and a secret base full of your favourite toys. Come on, I’ll tell you on the way.” He doesn’t say Madeleine. Somehow he knows it wouldn’t go over very well.  
  
If his voice is a little rough and the words edged with desperate urgency, he doesn’t really try to hide it. This is James Bond, old and broken, having seen entirely too much and done more than enough, still begging Q for one more insane leap of faith because he doesn’t know how to quit – he’s not 007 reporting for a mission at Six anymore. Their balance of power is all off-kilter and it makes him nervous.  
  
“NO. Bond, that just isn’t enough. I’m not endangering my career for your personal crusades. Not anymore.” Q looks at Moneypenny, and now _there’s_ a whole conversation between them, unspoken. His voice at last cracks a little at the end, when he throws a look from Eve back to James and gives her a small sideways nod. “Are you in on it, too?” _Betrayal, indignation, disbelief_ , James reads.  
  
She shakes her head, smiling a sad little smile. “I don’t know anything more than you do at this point. But I couldn’t just throw him out! Or lie to him, God forbid. He’s been lied to enough.”  
  
“So you brought him here.”  
  
“I could have found out, if I wanted to,” James says blankly, all of them knowing it for the truth that it is. Q looks down briefly, and it occurs to James that all this time, Q has probably known his exact location and more. He could have found James, too, if he’d ever wanted.  
  
“Why come to me?” Q asks, eyes still averted to the floor, or the wall behind them, or the tabletop between. It’s a red flag that screams _wrong_ to James without any conscious thought or training. For all his apparent composure and aloofness, Q can barely hold himself together, he realises.  
  
And then it clicks. _It’s not that Q doesn’t want to help him – quite the opposite_. _Q doesn’t trust him anymore, and it’s tearing him apart._ What James has done, has torn _them_ apart. This is the end of it. The pressure inside of him crests like a wave and breaks, flooding him. The pain of it is visceral, almost physical.  
  
He’s left adrift. Q won’t be there for him.  
  
He’s really, truly wrecked _everything_. Failed miserably, before he even really started anything, and let down the last real friend he had left, someone who counted on him. Felix is going to laugh at him, right before he’s going to kill him. Unless someone else gets to it first: if they don’t manage to do this, and soon, there will be nothing left to save.  
  
Nothing left to lose, either.  
  
He rubs a tired hand across his face and sighs. He might as well cut himself open. If there’s anything useful inside left to salvage, let Q find it, repair it and put it to use.  
  
“I have known you for a long time,” he says. He knows Q knows there’s a deeper meaning to it. It implies what no-one ever says to his face; that many don’t survive knowing him. Not for long, anyway. He sees himself now, the curse of the old days having come back to haunt those that outlived it.  
  
“Yes,” Q nods, and finally, _finally_ meets his eyes and holds his gaze. James had forgotten how strangely arresting it was. “It has been seven years, nine months and two days. Of those, you have been gone for more than the last four years. I don’t even know who you are anymore.”  
  
“Yes, you do!” James tries to swallow around the sad kind of anger that threatens to choke him. “You’re probably the only one who ever knew me. What I became. For years I thought… I wanted to forget. Now I think I have. I hoped you would remind me.”  
  
Q regards him steadily, a little wistful maybe, eyes almost fever-bright, but composed, now more so that he’s a had a moment to come to terms with the spook from his past standing in his living room. “I would have done anything for you. Anything you ever thought to ask.”  
  
Q holds his gaze for a heartbeat, or an eternity. It’s all the same.  
  
To James, Q has always been one of the bravest men he’s ever met. It has never been more profoundly true.  
  
“Tell me what you want me to do,” he finally concedes.  
  
There’s just a little hint of a smile on the corner of Q’s lips. James breathes an unconscious sigh of relief, takes a step forward, encouraged, and looks to Moneypenny for backup. Afterall, he isn’t 007 anymore.  
  
“Save the world with me.”  
  
“That’s a little vague, isn’t it? And I’m tired.”  
  
“How’d you fancy a quick trip to the middle of the Pacific, Q? Quite literally. I’m going to need a plane to get there.”  
  
“It was never nine to five, was it?”  
  
“I’m afraid you’re going to have to find a cat sitter. And a pilot. Unless you want me to wreck the plane after jumping off.”  
  
“You won’t have to jump.” A wicked gleam lights up Q’s eyes. “We have just the thing for you. Needed field testing anyway. I will even co-pilot for you if you ask nicely.”  
  
James is speechless. Moneypenny is… horrified. “No, you won’t,” she says sharply.  
  
Q’s smile widens, until he schools his features into the serious yet intensely driven expression of the quartermaster in his element, eager to prove himself. And suddenly he’s years younger, Olivia Mansfield’s bright new star boffin, whom James had once doubted at first sight and then been promptly out-sassed at the National Gallery.  
  
“I suppose you’ll be wanting something to blow up, then?”  
  
James grins. “Always”.  
  
“Wait a second, we’ll go in a moment. You can explain in the car.”  
  
Q disappears into an adjacent room, while he and Eve make it to the door. Time is of the essence, still.  
  
Eve gives him a death glare and hisses, “You really make me want to commit murder sometimes, you know that?”  
  
“Please refrain this time until my job here is done,” he says mildly.  
  
Eve can’t resist the bait. “You’re in luck _this time_ , as it is. I think for some insane reason Q would hate me for blasting you into oblivion,” she mutters in response.  
  
Then Q arrives with his bag, and they’re out the door, heading after Eve for their car. London chills his bones and it’s not just the weather. James startles slightly at the slight warm pressure of a hand on his shoulder.  
  
“Here, I thought you might have missed this. Might come in handy in a world-saving operation.”  
  
Q hands him the familiar black case, opening his bag for James to toss it back in after he picks up the gun inside. Familiar shape and weight of the Q-Branch issued Walther fits into his palm like a glove. He clicks the safety off and the light on the handle turns green.  
  
His step doesn’t falter even as his eyes fill and he has to blink.  
  
Q doesn’t miss a thing, except…  
  
“I missed you too,” he says softly, glancing up as James struggles to see where they’re headed, stepping close enough that their arms lightly brush and their paces match. “Let’s go cook up some destruction.”  
  
“Wait,” James halts Q once more by grabbing him by the wrist. “There’s one more thing.”  
  
He fishes a small object from his pocket and drops it on Q’s up-turned palm. Q’s eyes go wide as he takes in the familiar shape of the golden Aston Martin wings, the set of keys reflecting a glimmer from the streetlight above.  
  
  



End file.
